Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-09-23
FRIDAY MORNING. SEPT. %. 1857
A FEW WORDS TO TEMP FRANCE
DEMOCRATS,


party with which you have been associa-
ted for years. and which has given you
good National and State government. and,
instead of voting for your nominees in
November. to-hre it into space. In this
duel with Mahoneism you are asked to fire
into the air. There is no Prohibition issue
Immediately at hand land in default of it
you are asked to throw away your ballot;
for that,a you and those who ask you, well
know is the effect. Of all the ballots, Dem
ocratic and Republican, cast in November
yours is the only one not to count for any,
thing. You are asked to leave your party
to follow two men. who have no connec-
tion with tito defeat. Victory is not even
held out to you nor the chance of it.
Why, do you suppose, is such PROPOSE
ton made to the Democratic Temperance
voters of Augusta? There is no Local
Option to be voted on; that cannot come
again for twelve month, and when it
does your ballots will doubtless be ready
for it as they were before. There is no
Prohibition to be voted on. Your vote
next November does not affect Prohibit
t1ion. You know well enough that the
way to get vote at Prohibition is, as has
been done in other States, by petitions to
the legislature. Y ou are not so easily de-
ceived as to believe that there must be q
Prohibition Governor and a Prohibition
legislature before the People can get a
chance to vote on the question of Prohi-
bition. Texas is anti-Prohibition by 100,-
600 majority and yet its Democratic legis-
lature put the question before the people
to be voted on by them. You know well
enough that whichever party carries the
legislature of 1878 in Virginia. will, if
petisioned give the people the right to
vote on the question. Why then are you
asked to vote for Prohibition candidates
(who will not be elected) to Prohibition
legislature (which will not assembly, when
any legislature will give you the privilege
of voting on the question? Your repre-
sentatiYes to the legislature of 1856 were
not chosen with reference to Local OPP
tion; nobody asked you then to leave your
party and vote for Local Option-and yet
you got general local option law which
is to-day the law of the State and which
has been applied in many localities. You
must see and know that it takes no third
party to carry Prohibition in Virginia any
more than it did Local Option.
You are asked by this conference of
Prohibitionists to leave the Democratic
party-the only party that ever gave lem
perance a step forward, which it did in the
Local sOption law-and to throw away
your vote on two hopeless candidates, and
thereby aid the success of the Republican
party. party which has never, though for
two years in control of the State, enacted
q single piece of legislation in aid of the
cause you have at heart. That is strange
and inconsistent request isn't it? But you
say the Republican temperance people are
asked to leave their party, too! So they
are; but how many do you suppose are
going to leave it ? How many of the col
ored voters who. as you know, constitute
the bulk of the Republican party in Vir-
ginia. are going on election day to desert
the Republican ticket and walk up and
vote for two Prohibitionists, one Of whom
has not been ninety days out Of the Dem
ocratic County Committee and the other
of whom has not been voting the Republi-
can ticket with regularity for some time?
Have you the remotest idea that the col
ored Republicans are going to waste their
votes on hopeless party experiment when
they have before them a.chance to down
the Democratic party Of Augusta ? No;
you do not and cannot believe it. You
know the colored Republican and his af-
lection for Malone too we'll to believe
that when there is chance to put his po-
to substitute moral idea for an idol and
let the opportunity of helping him slip.
There are few white Republicans in the
city and county, that in the face of their
party ticket will vote for a Prohibition
ticket. but they are so few that you can
almost remember their names. They con-
stitute the little contingent from The Re
publican party that third party may get,
all the rest must come from the Demo.
cracy.
We have said that you are asked to
throw your vote where it will not count
but it may count like boomerang; that
you are asked to fire your ballot into the
air-but it may hit and mortalIy wound
your best friend, the Democratic party.
You all understand the situation in Vir-
ginia politics to-day. The Republican
party proposes nothing new to the people
lit offers no solution of the debt CUES.
tii0n, It is ABSOLUTELY without an issue save
one. You know what that one is-it is
the election Of William Malone to the
United States Senate, his return tc
power with all that those three words
imply. Its carrying the State Senate is
hopeless, so it is addressing itself to the
capture of. the House of Delegates
Augusta has two of those delegates tt
elect. The Temperance Democrats by
T.v1uraWing their votes from their party
may find that they have aided in sending
two Republican delegates from Augusta
to vote for William Malone. 1t will be
too late to mend it after it is done.
We have tried to address you, temper
ance Democrats, as reasonable men. We
have nothing to say against Local Option
or Prohibition; indeed, this was one Of
the Democratic journals in Virginia that
demanded in season and out the passage
of the Local Option law, and further, that
it be applied to the smaller cities, SO as te
include our own. We believe in the right
of the people TO vote on questions affect.
ing Sesa, and shall always hold that to be
the true solution of all such questions
whether they be Local Option or Prohibi-
ton. What we have to say, and most earnest
ly say, to the Temperance or Local Option
or Prohibition Democrats,i is that whatever
they may do when Prohibition is up to be